Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour, Charleston in Lewes – A few Chinese-Related Notes #2 – Young Julian, 1912

The Exhibition Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour is on at Charleston in Lewes, East Sussex until September 21. A few Chinese-related notes….

Among the whole exhibition there is only one picture featuring Bell’s son Julian – though there is a large portrait of Bell as a young man painted by Vanessa placed prominently above her bed at Charleston. Nursery Tea (1912) shows Vanessa’s two young children, Julian (b. 1908) and, on the left, Quentin (b. 1910) with two nursemaids, almost certainly at the Bell family home, 46 Gordon Square. Julian is of course interesting to China Rhyming because in 1935 he went to China to teach English at Wuhan University where he had an affair with Ling Shuhua, the wife of Professor Chen Yuan (better known by his pen-name, Chen Xiying). It all blew up into a massive scandal, Bell returned home, went to Spain and was killed in the Civil War. Ling Shuhua (who incidentally grew up and became involved in the May 4th/New Culture Movement) on Shijia Hutong in Peking at the same time Wallis Simpson lived there briefly) later lived in England for many years. She communicated by letter with Vanessa’s sister Virginia Woolf, though they never met, but did become friends with Vita Sackville West – and hence a firm line of contact between China’s New Culture Movement and the Bloomsbury Group.